Windows / Computers

Checking video and audio drivers has always been a difficult thing for me. I am sure there is an easier way, but at the same time, it could be as hard as figuring out the motherboard information. Last night I had to help my parents with a new game they got, which isn’t working correctly. The game developer’s website suggests updating the video and audio drivers. Having no idea how to update the audio driver other than poking around in some areas in XP and doing a general search on the internet.

However, I found some instructions on how to at least find the audio brand or manufacturer.

Step 1: Type Windows > R

Step 2: In the window that comes up, type “dxdiag”

Step 3: A window prompt will come up asking if you want Windows to check your DirectX diagnostic tool, just hit “OK”.

Step 4: You will see a series of tabs, click on any of the tabs that say “Sound”.

Step 5: Under the information listed for “Device” you will see a fieldset called “Name”, and this is where you will find the audio manufacturer as well as other related information.

I haven’t researched enough to know if this is specifically for the type of video card you have, but I believe it is a built in windows shortcut.

I have a dual monitor setup at home right now, two 17″ CRT’s. I often take screenshots for many different uses, when communicating with people, to keep the look of a website for reference as well as other reasons. Since I got my video card late last year for this setup, I have noticed that when taking a screenshot, it takes a shot of both of my screens together. The resolution is set at 2560 x 960, so before I was getting screenshots that were only 1280 x 1024 (960 is a video card increment), and now anytime I take a screenshot, I have to crop it down to the actual size I want.

Not anymore.

Most people know, to take a screenshot, you hit the “Print Screen” button on your keyboard. It is usually listed “Prt Scr” or some other abbreviation, and on my keyboard it is located up next to my F keys, right to the right of F12 and right above the Insert key.

To take a screenshot of the screen you are actively working all you have to do is hit this keyboard shortcut;

alt + Print Screen

When there is a dual monitor setup, you will only have one monitor, or usually program, active at one time. Whatever is active, that is the screenshot you will take.

Then of course open your favorite graphics editing program, even Windows Paint and paste in your screenshot and save;

Paste = Ctrl + V

Save = Ctrl + S

There you go, very helpful, and has changed my life since I learned it a couple of weeks ago.

This was the question I had the other day when I was looking to rename some of my menus. By default, Windows has a strategy for organizing and naming all of your startup menus depending on the programs that are installed. After awhile you get a mess of unorganizing programs, and I found the following tip to be really helpful.

I like things alphabetized, because that helps me find things faster. In your startup menu, you can actually click, drag, and hold down a menu and drag it to another place to organize it how you like. So here are your steps;

1. Turn on your computer.

2. Click on the “Start” button.

3. Roll your mouse over “All Programs”.

4. Click and hold down on one of the program sections like the image below is demonstrating.

5. Drag the section to a new area. A thin black bar will indicate where you can drop the section, usually between two others.

Customizing the start menu.

Now, to customize the start menu to have the programs or shortcuts that you want, follow the first two steps above.

3. Right Click on the “Start” button. Choose “Open All Users“.

4. Double Click on the folder called “Programs“. You should have this folder, but if you don’t, try any folder that you see.

5. These folders correspond to what is in your “All Programs” list. You can now add, delete, or change the links and names of any of these programs to best suit your needs.

What I was looking to do was add a shortcut to the list. In order to do that, these are the steps. It is just like making a shortcut normally, telling a link to point to where the program actually is located.

1. Click on “New” and Choose “Shortcut“.

2. Click on “Browse” and then look for the program that you want to link to. Usually it will be located used My Computer > Local Disk C: > Program Files > (Program Name) > (Program).exe. It will almost always be an .exe or executable file, the file that runs the program.

3. Your shortcut is done. Drag it into the folder you want inside “Programs“, make a new folder, or just leave it where it is.

4. Click “Start” > “All Programs” and you should now see your new shortcut in the list.

I hope this was helpful.

Like we did yesterday, we are going to first start by opening up a MS-DOS prompt. Refer to what we did below if you have forgotten.

This time, instead of changing directories to get to a specific one, we are going to be able to type a command from the pwd, or present working directory.

At the prompt, type this command;

ipconfig or ipconfig /all

The first command (ipconfig) will spit out the IP address, Subnet Mask, and Gateway Mask of your computer.

The second command (ipconfig /all) will spit out the DNS Server information, your Mac address, as well as a myriad of other information.

Pretty neat information either way, you should just try it out.

I had this video file at work, a funny commericial, that every time I click on it, the windows explorer would crash. I could not delete this file for the life of me, but it was a large file and I wanted the space.

There is a way to get rid of the file using an MS-DOS prompt, so let’s run through those steps to see how.

Step 1: Open a prompt. On the Windows machine;

Click (Windows Key) + R

or

Click Start and choose “Run” on the lower right side. When you do, you will see a dialog box that looks like this;

Step 2: Type cmd. This will bring up an MS-DOS prompt.

It should put you in a certain directory name. In my case, my pops mine into this directory on my computer. C:\Documents and Settings\Jeff Rothe\>

Step 3: The directory I need to get to is on my C: drive, and is called “Music”. So from this directory path I need to type this in;

cd ../../

Basically what this is saying is Change Directory and each set of “../” means go up one directory. This should bring you up to the prompt that now says C:\>

Step 4: Now type this and afterwards hit enter;

cd music

This should now display C:\Music>

Let’s take a look for the file we are looking for. What we need to do is type this command and after hit enter;

dir

Very quickly all of the files you have in that directory will show up and go whizzing by your face. Make sure the file you are looking for is in the directory.

When you find the file, type this at your C:\Music> prompt and after hit enter;

erase /F /S /Q (filename)

So in my case, I am looking to delete a file called Commercial.wmv. I would type this in;

erase /F /S /Q Commerci*

The asterisk that I have added at the end of the filename prevents me from having to type out the whole file exactly as it appears. Basically was DOS does is searches through the directory for any files that start with Commerci and deletes them. This can be bad if you have more than one file named similarly, but in this case, I only had one file that started with Commerci, so the erase function deleted only the file I wanted to.

And for those of your who got this, but want to know what the /F /S /Q stand for, here you go;

/F = Force deleting of read-only files.
/S = Delete specified files from all subdirectories.
/Q = Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to delete

So, basically this means, delete all files with this name, from all subdirectories, and don’t ask me if it’s ok.

Final Step : To exit out of the the MS-DOS window, you can either close it, or you can type exit and that will close out the window as well.

If you want to try this out, the beta version is at maps.google.com.

This is the best thing I have seen from Google since their browser. You can hold your mouse down and drag a map in any direction you want. It is fast at re-rendering that map.

When you search for a map, they are up to date. Unlike Yahoo and Mapquest, which will have outdated information.

The directions it lists on the side of the screen in an easy to use fashion, and if you click on each step, it will animated the map with a highlighted icon that is 3d and stands up.

You can zoom in any direction, much faster than yahoo maps. It will actually zoom in and show you the intersection so you can get a clear, clean, and uncongested idea of what you are doing at each interval.

So, go and check this out. It will make your destinations that much easier to achieve, and it is fun to play with!

I signed up, by invitation only, for Gmail late last fall. With great space, 1 GB, and a super fast interface, I thought that this was a cool product. But for the longest time it was in beta only, because Google wants to test before they actually release. Well, it is finally public. Here is the actual email I got regarding their release.

Thanks for signing up to be updated on the latest Gmail happenings. We hope it’s been worth the wait, because we’re excited to finally offer you an invitation to open a free Gmail account!

Since last April, we’ve been working hard to create the best email service possible. It already comes with 1,000 megabytes of free storage, powerful Google search technology to find any message you want instantly, and a new way of organizing email that saves you time and helps you make sense of all the information in your inbox. And here are just some of the things that we’ve added in the last few months: - Free POP access: Take your messages with you. Download them, read them offline, access them using Outlook, your Blackberry or a ny other device that supports POP - Gmail Notifier: Get new mail notifications and see the messages and their senders without having to open a browser - Better contacts management: Import your contacts from Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Outlook, and others to Gmail in just a few clicks.

Add phone numbers, notes and more. Even use search to keep better track of it all. We also wanted to thank you. For showing us your support and for being so patient. And to those who have already signed up for Gmail, thank you for giving it a try and for helping us make it better. Our users are what have made this product great. So whether you’re just signing up for your account or you’ve been with us since the beginning, keep letting us know how we can build you the best email service around. That’s it for now. We hope you like Gmail and will share it with your friends. We’ve got lots of cool new stuff planned and we can’t wait for you to see our work in your Gmail accounts! Stay tuned… Thanks, The Gmail Team

So, there is no excuse to switch. Except that it could be a little work to update everyone that you know that you have changed your email. But that happens fairly frequently, right? The space and speed is more than worth it.

Plus, read on and you will see why Google is on a roll!

Free Google notifier for Gmail!

Notifier is kind of like having MSN, or AOL messenger on your desktop, but not annoying. This is little program that stores in your system tray that lets you know when you have new email on Gmail.com. Simple and easy to install, and like most of their programs, highly unobtrusive.

Here is an image of it, a tiny little envelope icon that signals that you are connected to your gmail.

A fast little time saver I learned last week. You have the quick icon that will shortcut to your desktop if you need it. But there is also a keypress combo you can use.

To minimize all programs and return to the desktop press “windows key” + “D”.

To see all of your system properties without going all the way back to your desktop, right clicking and selecting properties you can access the system properties with a windows shortcut.

Windows Key + Pause | Break - Hit these two keys in conjunction to bring up that screen.